Pricing Increases: How to Take Advantage by Buying Used
Buy Used Before New Prices Reset the Market
Rising memory and component costs are already pushing up the price of new technology. For buyers of professional broadcast, film and AV equipment, the used market may offer a valuable—but temporary—pricing advantage.
In this article
- Why are equipment prices rising?
- We are already seeing it in professional equipment
- Which types of professional equipment are most exposed?
- Not every used price will move in the same way
- Why used-market prices take longer to respond
- We have seen the same lag work in reverse
- What should buyers be looking for now?
- A window for auction buyers
On 25 June 2026, Apple raised prices across its Mac and iPad ranges worldwide. In the UK, the starting price of the MacBook Air increased by £200 and the MacBook Pro by £300, with larger increases on some higher-specification configurations.
Apple said that exceptionally rapid increases in memory and storage costs had reached the point where they could no longer be fully absorbed.
It was a particularly visible example of a much broader change taking place across the technology sector.
Manufacturers of computers, cameras, storage systems, production hardware and professional AV equipment all depend, to varying degrees, on many of the same components: DRAM, NAND Flash, SSD storage, processors, graphics hardware and high-speed networking technology.
Those components are becoming considerably more expensive—and the effects are beginning to reach finished products.
Thanks as always to our UK vendors, whose equipment keeps the used market a strong, well-supplied alternative as new prices climb.
Why are equipment prices rising?
The immediate pressure comes largely from the extraordinary growth of AI infrastructure.
Data-centre operators are purchasing huge quantities of high-bandwidth memory, server DRAM and enterprise storage. Semiconductor manufacturers are consequently allocating more production capacity to these higher-margin markets, reducing the capacity available for conventional computers, cameras, storage appliances and other professional technology.
Industry analyst TrendForce expects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise by 58–63% quarter-on-quarter during the second quarter of 2026. NAND Flash contract prices—the technology behind SSDs, camera media and many integrated storage systems—are forecast to rise by 70–75% over the same period.
This is not simply a temporary retail promotion ending or a single manufacturer changing its margins. It is a significant movement in the underlying cost of building modern equipment.
IDC now forecasts that average PC selling prices will rise by approximately 18.3% during 2026, with meaningful relief from the memory shortage not expected before the end of 2027.
We are already seeing it in professional equipment
Apple may have generated the biggest headlines, but it is far from the only relevant example.
Blackmagic Design has increased prices across selected cameras and storage products following sharp increases in the cost of flash memory and high-speed DRAM.
The company’s 8 TB Media Module, for example, moved from $2,645 to $4,195—an increase of approximately 59%. Price changes have also affected parts of the URSA Cine, Cloud Store, HyperDeck and ATEM ranges where substantial amounts of integrated storage are involved.
Crestron has introduced price increases of around 5% across much of its product range, rising to approximately 10% for many AV-over-IP products and 15% for memory-intensive equipment including control processors, touchscreens and Flex conferencing systems.
Canon has not yet announced an equivalent across-the-board camera increase, but its latest financial outlook shows the scale of the pressure. Canon expects higher memory costs to have a negative impact of approximately ¥50 billion during 2026 and says further cost increases may be addressed through a combination of pricing, cost reductions and expense control.
HP has also warned that volatility in memory-chip supply and pricing could persist into next year, putting pressure on the wider PC and workstation market.
The significance for the broadcast and production sector is that these costs do not stop with laptops or consumer electronics.
Which types of professional equipment are most exposed?
The most immediate effects are likely to be felt in equipment containing substantial amounts of memory, internal storage or high-performance processing.
Post-production, workstations and storage
In a typical KitPlus Auctions catalogue, this can include post-production and storage equipment from manufacturers such as Apple, HP, Avid, Promise and Blackmagic Design.
Workstations, shared storage, edit systems and media servers are directly exposed to the cost of RAM, SSDs, graphics hardware and high-performance processors. Even where the base hardware remains available, the cost of specifying enough memory and storage for demanding production workflows can rise substantially.
Replay, switching and broadcast infrastructure
The same pressures can affect replay, graphics, switching, routing, monitoring and broadcast infrastructure from manufacturers such as EVS, Grass Valley, Evertz, Ross Video, Vizrt, Imagine Communications, AJA and Riedel.
Many of these systems contain substantial amounts of processing power, memory and storage. They may also depend on specialist network interfaces, FPGA hardware and proprietary control systems that are expensive to replace.
Monitoring, test and signal-management equipment from Tektronix, TSL, Teradek, Miranda, Snell and Harris can also retain significant operational value, particularly where buyers need to expand or support an existing installation without replacing an entire system.
Professional audio and communications
Professional audio, monitoring and communications equipment is another relevant category.
Digital consoles, audio-over-IP systems, monitoring controllers and communications hardware from manufacturers including Calrec, Solid State Logic, Genelec, Sennheiser, Yamaha, Sonifex and Behringer may be affected by higher processing, memory, networking and component costs.
Again, this does not mean every model will rise by the same percentage. It means the cost of replacing a complete working system may increase as the underlying hardware becomes more expensive.
Cameras and production systems
Modern cameras from Blackmagic Design, Canon, Sony, Panasonic, RED, ARRI, JVC and DJI depend on fast memory buffers, sophisticated image processing and increasingly high-capacity internal or removable media.
A camera’s replacement cost is also rarely limited to the body alone. Media, viewfinders, recording modules, licences, batteries, control accessories and mounting hardware can materially change the cost of creating a complete working package.
That makes well-configured used camera packages particularly important. A complete system may offer far more value than the headline difference between a new and used camera body suggests.
Lenses, grip and camera support
Other equipment categories will respond differently.
Professional lenses from Cooke, Angenieux, Fujinon, Zeiss, Sigma and Samyang are less directly exposed to memory prices.
Their used values tend to depend more heavily on optical performance, condition, serviceability, mount compatibility, scarcity and the price of the equivalent lens new.
The same applies to camera support and grip equipment from OConnor, Sachtler, Vinten, Ronford Baker, Manfrotto and Inovativ.
These products may not contain expensive memory or processing hardware, but higher new-equipment prices and lengthy replacement lead times can still strengthen the case for buying well-maintained used equipment.
Lighting equipment
Professional lighting is another category where used equipment can provide substantial value.
Equipment from manufacturers including Astera, ETC, Chauvet, Clay Paky, Ayrton, ROBE, VARI-LITE, Martin Lighting and Rotolight may be influenced by the cost of LEDs, power electronics, control systems and manufacturing.
For buyers expanding a studio, venue or production package, the relevant comparison is often the cost of assembling a complete working lighting system rather than the price of one individual fixture.
Not every used price will move in the same way
This does not mean that every manufacturer listed above has announced a price increase, or that every product will rise by the same amount.
The used market will not simply increase by one uniform percentage.
Current, well-supported and hard-to-source equipment may react quickly. Older or heavily superseded systems may see little movement. Equipment that requires expensive licences, specialist repairs or missing accessories can behave very differently from a complete, ready-to-use package.
Condition, configuration, compatibility and demand remain essential.
What is changing is the replacement-cost backdrop against which buyers make those decisions.
Why used-market prices take longer to respond
Used prices generally reflect changes in the cost of buying an equivalent product new—but they rarely adjust immediately.
The new market is centrally controlled. A manufacturer can update an international price list or dealer system overnight.
The used market is fragmented across auctions, dealers, rental companies, private sellers and online marketplaces. Sellers may continue using earlier comparable sales, historic valuations or the amount they originally paid. Buyers may also take time to adjust their expectations and budgets.
Auction catalogues have their own lead times. Equipment may have been appraised, photographed and entered for sale before a new manufacturer price increase was announced.
That creates a pricing lag.
When new-equipment prices rise, used stock may continue to reflect the previous replacement cost for a period. Eventually, where demand remains and equipment is current, useful or difficult to source, the higher cost of replacement generally works its way into second-hand values.
That gap between the two markets is the current opportunity.
We have seen the same lag work in reverse
The principle becomes particularly clear when new prices fall rather than rise.
In 2018, RED Digital Cinema dramatically simplified and repriced its camera range. The RED Weapon Helium 8K S35 fell from approximately $50,000 to $24,500—a reduction of just over 50%. The Weapon Monstro 8K VV moved from around $80,000 to $54,500.
The used market did not update instantly.
For a period, cameras continued to appear on used marketplaces at asking prices based on the previous RED price structure. In some cases, the advertised used price was effectively higher than the revised cost of an equivalent camera bought new.
Those listings eventually adjusted, but not on the day RED changed its price list.
The direction today is different, but the underlying mechanism is the same: the new and used markets do not move in perfect synchronisation.
What should buyers be looking for now?
The strongest opportunities are unlikely to be found simply by buying anything second-hand in the hope that it increases in value.
Buyers should look for equipment that:
- already fits a genuine production or technical requirement;
- remains current, compatible and supportable;
- would be materially more expensive to replace with new equipment;
- contains memory, storage or processing components exposed to current cost pressures;
- is in limited supply on the used market;
- includes the accessories, licences and hardware needed to put it into service; and
- can be integrated into an existing workflow without disproportionate additional cost.
A well-specified workstation, storage system, camera chain, production switcher, lighting package or replay server can represent a very different opportunity from an incomplete or heavily superseded system, regardless of its original selling price.
The right comparison is therefore not simply:
“What did this cost when it was new?”
It is:
“What would it cost to create the same working capability today?”
A window for auction buyers
Higher new prices generally strengthen the relative value offered by good used equipment. The effect is rarely immediate, however, and that delay gives informed buyers an opportunity.
Much of the used market still reflects yesterday’s replacement costs, even though manufacturers and analysts are now signalling materially higher costs ahead.
Buying now means getting ahead of that adjustment before higher new prices work their way fully into second-hand values.
The linked manufacturer names above lead directly to relevant equipment in our current auctions. Take a look, see what fits your workflow and identify where today’s used pricing could give you an advantage.
Sources and further reading: Reuters: Apple price increases | Commercial Integrator: Crestron and AV price increases | TrendForce: memory-price forecast | IDC: PC market forecast | RedShark: Blackmagic Design increases | Canon: 2026 results and outlook | Reuters: HP memory-cost warning | Newsshooter: RED’s 2018 price reductions.
